Forestry is the mainstay of economic activity in mountain villages, and has played a role in supplementing income from farming and side businesses. However, since the period of high economic growth, the population of mountain village residents has been aging and declining, and forest management activities in mountain villages have been shrinking. A survey was conducted in Tenryu Village, Nagano Prefecture, and the relationship between the status of household heads and households, the status of migrant families, the ownership and cultivation of agricultural and forest land by households, and the status of implementation of forest management to examine factors for the continuation of forest management in mountain villages and measures that should be taken when forest management stops, were recorded. The results revealed that the occupation of the household head, the place of residence and the frequency of homecoming of family members who most frequently return, the farmland cultivation status of the household, and the area of forest land owned were significantly related to the status of implementation of forest management. In particular, it is important to have continuous exchanges between successors of forest owners, who are likely to become absentee village landlords in the future, and mountain village communities. There is an urgent need for measures to encourage successors and forest owners to jointly confirm the boundaries of forests.
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